There and Back Again

I spent the last several days in Srimangal, a region in the northeast of Bangladesh. The purpose of the journey was to understand the breadth of ethnicities and activities in the Bangladeshi countryside, or something like that. This area has been cultivated for tea beginning in 1840 when the British arrived. They brought Indian indentured laborers to work the tea gardens, creating an isolated group of Hindus who speak a combination of Hindu and Bangla that is largely incomprehensible to native Bangladeshis. We learned a good deal about the tea industry, which wasn't very interesting but gave us an idea of what life is like in this region. Most of the tea gardens are owned by businessmen that use government tea subsidies to benefit them in other ventures and neglect their gardens, causing unemployment and a decline in output to the point where Bangladesh might need to start importing tea. The area was beatiful - rolling hills covered with rows of tea plants that rolled into tropical forests, which composed the entire landscape until the British decided that the terrain was perfect for tea production. We took a fun hike through a national park, saw Capped Langurs (see picture), and visited a village in the forest. A manager of a tea plantation showed us around and we had fresh and delicious tea at his nice colonial house. We stayed at the Tea Resort, which catered to Western travelers and thus made delicious food that appealed to our American sensibilities, including spaghetti, pizza, and cheese sandwiches. We had the badminton court to ourselves and the bungalows provided excellent space for movie watching using one of the guide's projectors. Yesterday, we traveled to villages and played with village children and observed their ceremonies for the celebration of the Hindu goddess of learning. We took part in a dance performance and are becoming well versed in traditional Bengali dances. The bus brought us back to Dhaka today, as we try to soak in Bangladesh for 48 more hours.